


I'll Fall With Your Knife

by Malapropian



Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst, Assisted Suicide, Canon Divergence, Codependency, Disease, F/M, Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Older Man/Younger Woman, Post-Apocalypse, Suicide Pact, Vaginal Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-31
Updated: 2016-12-31
Packaged: 2018-09-13 13:51:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9126535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Malapropian/pseuds/Malapropian
Summary: The first sign is a ringing in the ears.The second is the chorus of whispers.The third is hallucinations, spontaneous genjutsu from which there is no escape.The fourth is weakness and wasting.The last is death.-At the end of the world, Sakura and Kakashi only have each other.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this for the kakasaku community's December 2012 "End of the World" challenge. Four years later... _here we are._
> 
> I'm never going to actually finish this story, but I think that there's enough here to post even though there are a lot of missing scenes. I will always have a great affection for IFWYK because it was the first thing I started writing after seven years of nothing. I was just starting to experiment and figure out my own style, so this fic is a bit all over the place. It's a messy, sad wreck, but it's one of the earliest stories that I will still claim.
> 
> The title is from a [Peter Murphy song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvUDS-xYNu8) of the same name.
> 
>  **Warnings:** This is one of my old fics. I'm pretty sure that I'm a better writer now. There are probably a lot of mistakes and etc., so I'm sorry about that.
> 
> This is not a happy story. I don't think it's that terrible, but I guess some people might be bothered by all the gratuitous angst. Is there fanservice angst? If there is, then I may have achieved it.

The first sign is a ringing in the ears.

The second is the chorus of whispers.

The third is hallucinations, spontaneous genjutsu from which there is no escape.

The fourth is weakness and wasting.

The last is death.

Half of Konoha’s ninja are infected before the daimyo banishes them, forcing them to wander the earth. 

Sakura will never forgive Naruto and Sasuke for going where she can’t follow.

~*~*~

Kakashi only finds her later, with the rest of the Konoha refugees at Suna.

He’d been on a long-term mission when the plague first began, and he’d thought nothing of it. He should have cut his mission short, come home sooner. That’s the litany running through his mind when Sakura breaks the news. They’re the only two left of her original genin team.

Once again, Kakashi Hatake is the last man standing. He holds Sakura in his arms, patting her stiffly. He’s never known how to comfort her, and he doesn’t know now.

When he’s alone again, he wishes for the Memorial Stone, so he can read the names of his dead over and over, trying to make sense of the awful truth: he’s still waiting to join them.

~*~*~

After waking, she is too exhausted to remember her dreams. Really, they mean less than nothing to her now. Sakura has no room left for childish dreams.

Let the others remember a sweeter, better world before the Whisper. Let them keep their loved ones alive through quiet stories. Let them keep their mementos of the dead as talismans against the dark. They’ll learn that a beautiful memory is useless if it can not fuel their rage.

Sasuke had helped teach her that lesson, but without the Whisper, Sakura would have never been able to agree with his choices or his willingness to forsake his precious people to pursue an ultimately destructive goal. 

Soon she will have an answer for the grief she can not speak; he will tell her everything she needs to know. He will give up every secret that has shaped him—as well as others which mean nothing. He will say _mercypleasemercy_ until he doesn’t know if he’s begging for pain or its end.

She’s read that mercy is the gift of the strong. 

Sakura has spent years becoming capable of mercy.

One day she won't need to imagine denying this man her strength.

~*~*~

The green glow fades to reveal Sakura, kneeling between Anko and Gai. She ignores Lee’s weeping.

“It’s done,” she rasps, voice hoarse from exhaustion. “The Whisper is contained.”

She ignores everyone around her as the bodies are moved. Subduing two ninja at their level and then… ending it—that always takes a lot out of her.

Sakura will never grow accustomed to the way her friends and comrades tread so lightly around her. Before they wouldn’t have flinched to see the green of her medical chakra, but now…. They’ve learned to fear it and, by extension, her.

Kakashi, Sai, and Yamato are the only ones left who will touch her without fear or deference. She’ll die before losing them.

~*~*~

The former leaf-nin are on the road again, looking for the one responsible for this epidemic, working with the remaining hidden villages, looking for a new home. 

And tonight, in the light of the communal fire, it’s clear that some are looking for something a little simpler.

The Hyuuga boy sits far too close to Sakura, and she allows it. She touches his hand, bumps his shoulder, takes food from his hand. 

She doesn’t smile. Neither does Kakashi, not that there are many people left who can tell what he does behind his mask.

In the end, when he asks her the question, Sakura shakes her head and sends him back to his cousin’s side.

Kakashi takes the seat so recently vacated by Neji, and nods companionably. “Yo.”

Sakura rolls her eyes at him. “Some things never change.”

He crinkles his eye at her in his way of smiling. Above all, he is a creature of habit and even more so at the end of the world. “What did he want?”

“Nothing.”

Kakashi inclines his head at her in polite disbelief.

“Fine. Nothing important,” she amends with a shrug. “Apparently some people have been talking about how much I’ve done in the last year. How I remind them of the best parts of shishou.” Her mouth takes on a cynical slant that could never pass for a smile.

“There are worse things than to be favorably compared to a Senju Hokage.”

Sakura snorts. “I never wanted that. Hokage wasn’t _my_ dream.” _I won’t take Naruto’s dream. Not like this._

“Neji Hyuuga may have brought up your leadership skills, but that’s not why he went back to Hinata with that hangdog expression on his face.”

“He asked me to share his bedroll. Why?” She needles him, “Are you jealous.” 

It’s clear that the question is out of idle amusement, but he finds the truth escaping his mouth before he can censor it. “Yes. I was a little.”

The parting of her lips is the only sign that he’s shocked her. He has no time to wonder when she became so good at hiding her emotions when she sighs and nudges his knee with hers. “Neji Hyuuga could never compete with you, and I could never compete with Hinata.”

Kakashi’s heart races at her admission. Does she really mean what it sounds like?

Sakura shakes her head and takes his hand. Her calloused skin and bitten nails are nothing like her genin days, or even her chuunin days, yet he can’t imagine her any other way now.

True to form, he hadn't truly seen her until all the parts that he might have loved were broken or buried under the weight of their harsh new world. For a moment the loss is so sharp—so overwhelming—that Kakashi grabs her and uses flash-steps them to the cover of the woods. Once there, he crushes her to his chest and shakes. He ignores Sakura’s half-hearted struggle to free herself. When he finally loosens his arms, she tilts her head up to kiss the corner of his uncovered mouth.

As they walk back to camp, he plays off his sudden intensity with the cool nonchalance Gai had always envied, but Kakashi knows she understands.

There are no more masks between them.

~*~*~

She wonders if they would have come together like this before everything, but it's a thought that reminds her she can't even recognize herself - much less her decisions. In that other time, she wouldn't have been capable of using her only remaining friends like weapons, like tools, like _a hokage_. 

Sakura tries to find the moment when she started to change into this terrifying, ruthless stranger. If she can find that moment, maybe she'll feel the same warm glow of accomplishment like when she used to sit at her mother's feet to untangle embroidery silks. Except the snarls and loops are her own memories, and somehow there's always one terrible, desperate act before the last. The trip backwards in her head makes the sharp edges of her broken parts hurt like new. She never thinks that there is enough pain in the world to keep from finding a way back to her old self, but there is. She’s no Yamanaka to traverse mindscapes unflinching.

There is always more pain than she can bear. 

~*~*~

Their change in dynamic has been profound. This life has revealed his hidden fragility and her hardness. They maintain the pretense of being equally unmoved and monstrous, but she's the one protecting his stunted humanity. 

Once, he cautioned her (so many years ago now), in his inimitably distant way, that years of ANBU—even being a jonin—meant giving up parts of yourself until there was nothing left but duty and eccentricity.

She's beginning to understand his sacrifices like she never could before.

~*~*~

Sakura stops so abruptly that even his skills cannot save them from crashing together to the forest floor. He's trying to untangle himself from her while every nerve is jangling with panic. She interrupts his muttered curses with a sharp, high laugh.

"Kakashi... I've been worried and scared all day. I've had a strange feeling that I couldn't shake until just now that I realised what it is. Can you guess what? Can you?" 

Her voice had only grown more shrill in her demand. He hasn't heard her like this since her arguments with Naruto in their genin days.

"I'm _happy_. How could I not know what that was? And how could I even begin to feel happy after everything that's happened? Does this make me a horrible person?"

It's obvious that she can barely manage to choke out her questions, so he gathers her back into his arms. As if the embrace is permission, ugly coughing sobs tear out of her throat. It's been too long since she's allowed herself tears or any kind of emotional vulnerability, and in his relief Kakashi is barely aware of saying that he's happy too when he realises that he means every word. 

"Then we can be horrible together." The offer hardly escapes his lips before she pulls away to peer up at him. Her face is tearstained and too thin for loveliness, but her eyes are all determination. 

In that moment, he's certain that she's the most beautiful woman he could ever hope to know.

It's only when she’s asleep, after she's spent her considerable focus on their pleasure, that he allows himself to feel the sadness in their mutual confession. He isn't her first, second, third, or even her last choice. It's obvious that being happy with him isn't what she really wants—anymore than he really wants to be happy with her.

Sakura won't admit it, but her recent hysterics are evidence enough. Any kind of contentment hurts her like the harsh jolt of deep chakra healing—necessary and nearly as painful as the original injury. 

While she's asleep, she doesn't look like the diamond hard woman in a losing battle with an epidemic. Something relaxes in the planes and angles of her body, and he thinks this is what should have been. A strange, tenderness wells up inside of him. It makes him wish he was a better man. A man who can help her move past the survivor's guilt and enjoy what time they have left, but even after decades of practice he’s still fumbling his way along the road of life. How can he hope to teach her something he’ll never master?

~*~*~

“I could have loved you so much.” 

“You don’t love me now?” teases Kakashi. He knows that she doesn’t mean it the way it sounds. He also knows about her diminished capacity for love. He understands (like recognizes like).

Sakura sighs and shifts in their blankets. In a sinuous move, she rolls them until she’s straddling his hips. She splays her rough fingers across his bare chest and tsks. “You’re too thin. Have you been giving me your rations again?”

He takes her hand and kisses her fingertips, tries to look at her with all the tenderness in his heart. Falls short. “Don’t ask stupid questions.” _I need you to live. Leaf needs you to live far more than they need me._

“When I was a girl. All I saw was Sasuke, but that was… ehh. It started as a way to make Ino see me, then it turned into something else.”

Kakashi grips her waist, experimentally rocks his hips up, grinding against her. _Fuck, she’s still wet._ “Are you saying it wasn’t real?” 

“Maybe it was real, but I was a child. I thought there was a way for him to come home. If anyone could have managed that it would have been Naruto.” 

Sakura guides one his hands up to her breast, presses his fingers into her flesh hard enough to leaves marks, so he gives her what she wants. He brings both hands to her nipples and pinches them, pinches them until she’s writhing and gasping, until she’s slippery enough for him to slide into her again.

“Sakura,” he growls as he focuses his thrusts, the length of his cock sliding across her clit with demanding pressure, avoiding her entrance. He pulls at her red, abused nipples just the way she wants, tearing sharp cries from her throat.

“Ahh, Kakashi,” she whimpers. “You, oh please!” She breaks off in a keen and shakes above him: completely vulnerable to Kakashi in this moment. Completely beautiful.

“I would have wanted you. I did want you.” He can’t say _I love you_ , not yet, so he flips them over and thrusts into her, burying his cock inside her while the muscles shiver and contract around him.

Sakura tilts her chin at him, ferocity in her gaze. She tears and bites at him, wraps her long legs around him and squeezes his waist. 

“I wanted you too,” she snarls. She tries, but she can’t hold his gaze. Sakura closes her eyes and turns her face away, tipping up her pale neck. Instead of challenging her, he obliges. 

If he bites harder than he should, it has nothing to do with the kindness, _the cruelty_ of her lie.

-

In the middle of the night, Kakashi wakes to Sakura muttering over him. He has to strain to hear her, and when he does, he nearly gives away his wakefulness.

“Idiot,” she whispers, “It doesn’t matter about before. I love you now. Now is all we have.”

He snakes his arms around her, cradling her against his chest. 

“Oomph!”

“Go to sleep, Sakura.” He clears his throat. “I love you now, more than anything.” _You’re the only thing I know. The only thing I have left._

“Good.”

~*~*~

For all of her rage, Sakura can’t keep the shock and pity from her face. Kakashi stands behind her left elbow, impassive as only he can be.

Finally, here it is: the reason for this illness, the destruction of the Elemental nations, and the deaths of almost everyone she has ever loved is just a little girl. Or according the records in the medical bay, an adult woman who’s been held captive in a child’s body since she contracted the “illness”, frozen in a facade of youth as the only chance at living through the symptoms.

It’s clear by the state of the room that she’s been alone for a very long time. The little girl wends her way through the towers of toys and dirty clothing. She waves at the air, shooing away pests only she can see as she skips to doorway where Sakura and Kakashi stand.

“Hello!” she chirps, looking at them from behind masses of black hair. “My name is Suzume. Are you here to have tea with me and my friends?” 

Kakashi brushes his fingers against the pouch at Sakura’s back, letting her know that he’ll follow her lead here. She drops her left hand in a relaxed position and flicks her fingers through rapid-fire hand signs. Watch. Wait. Infiltrate.

Another touch on her back, and Kakashi’s blank presence morphs into something cheerful and utterly false. Sakura squares her shoulders and pastes on a smile. “Of course, Suzume-chan! I’ve been waiting a very long time to meet you.”

~*~*~ 

The wrongness of the situation is only highlighted by the fact that her friends are all puppets and carefully preserved corpses.

They spend days with Suzume, alternately studying her medical records and trying to decide what to do with her—but above all, arguing over what happens next.

“If I have to play tea party with a bunch of fucking puppets one more time, Kakashi. I really don’t know what I’ll do. There’s nothing _here_ except Suzume and a bunch of corpses she thinks are her friends!”

Sakura is indulging in a shocking display of temper for once, and Kakashi can’t help but poke her. “I thought you said this would be the key to a cure?”

“Well I was wrong!” she cries as she punched him. “Is that what you wanted to hear, Sensei? We came all this way for nothing. It was a waste of years and resources… and so much death. And I still _failed_ them—” she breaks off when Kakashi slaps his hand over her mouth.

“Shut up, Sakura,” he says flatly. 

There’s no time for softness. There never seems to be time. Later, he’ll be kinder. Inwardly, he winces. Somehow it’s always later when it’s for Sakura, but he means it. 

Kakashi unbends enough to try again. “This isn’t a failure. No one expected a cure except for you. Even if this isn’t what you wanted, we can still learn something valuable here. What about the scientist who did this?”

“I swear, if you say anything about looking underneath anything, I will punch you again… and I won’t hold back,” she grumbles. “But… you’re right. I’m almost certain that the scientist is her father. He stopped the progression of the disease, but it was too late for her to be cured. From the records, he never found one, but he’s still looking. Her corpse dolls are friends and family—probably the first wave of infected. It doesn’t look like he could do the same procedure again, or maybe he never tried,” she sighs. “It doesn’t really matter anymore except medical curiosity.”

Kakashi hesitates at her words. He’s shocked to realise it, but somehow he had expected the best. That Sakura would find a cure. They would save the day, and rebuild the world. Somehow.

He should know by now. He’s always wrong when it counts. 

~*~*~ 

Sakura wakes up with a racing pulse. Her eyes dart around the room, for once Kakashi’s left her to wake alone, but _there_. Suzume. Sakura’s fingers twitch, ready to be formed into seals, but there’s no malice in it. 

Suzume stands in the furthest corner, watching her with too much knowledge in her young-old eyes.

 _Damn it. She knows something is wrong._ There are only so many times that they can put her off about her father, but there’s no way that she and Kakashi will reunite Suzume with her mad father, not with both of them living.

“I’ve been alone for so long before you and Kaka-san showed up.”

Sakura sits up and slips into the persona of someone kinder, someone who could like Suzume. _Someone like Naruto_. She smiles at the girl. “No one should need to be alone so long.”

Suzume drops her unsettling gaze to the floor, hiding behind her long bangs. “You don’t need to do that,” she murmurs. “It happens less and less often, but I know there’s something wrong with me, with this place. Sometimes I play with my friends, and I remember…. It wasn’t always like this.” Suzume trembles like a leaf on the wind. “I shouldn’t be here. None of this should be.”

The girl falls silent, and Sakura doesn’t press her. This is far more awareness than she’d had cause to suspect. 

“My father did something terrible didn’t he?”

“He did,” Sakura agrees steadily. “He must have loved you very much. More than anything.” _Enough to burn down the world, so you could have this half-life._

Suzume smiles at that. “He did. I forget a lot of things, but never that. Not even the voices can take that away.” Her smile fades. “You’re planning to leave soon aren’t you?”

And what can Sakura say to that? They’ve already stayed longer than they should have, especially now that they’ve located their target, and their pity for Suzume will only result in more deaths, through their action or inaction.

Part of her wants to deny it, but she can give Suzume the truth this once. “Yes. We know where your father is now. We’re leaving today.”

“Ah, so soon!” Suzume cries, and the light seems to go out of her. “So soon,” she repeats blankly.

Sakura opens her mouth and shuts it. She can’t apologize, and what’s more is that she won’t. Instead she says, “We’ve been looking for him since the beginning.”

“You thought he was here.”

A subtle change in the air pressure is the only indication that Kakashi is back. She ignores him for now. “We did. We found you instead.”

“I’m glad you did. I was so lonely.” Suzume steps closer, empty hands outstretched. “Ne, Sakura. I’m sorry for all the trouble I caused, but could you do one last thing for me?”

“What would you like, Suzume?”

“Will you take me to my father? I think he’d like to see me before the end.”

“Of course, Suzume-chan. Come sit here with me.” Sakura pats the empty space beside her. “Now, it’s time to sleep.” She switches places with Suzume, getting out of the bed and tucking in the frail girl. “Just close your eyes and wait.”

Sakura shoulders her already packed bag on the way out the door. Behind her, the room fills with flashing light and the chirping of one thousand birds.

She doesn’t look back. She trusts Kakashi to take care of the package.

~*~*~ 

“Ah, kunoichi-san. You are not a parent or you would know there is nothing too terrible if it will help your child. Soon, I will be dead from what you have named Whisper, but she will not die of it. She is happy. Because of her insanity she will never be lonely or even notice that I am dead.” His lips twitch in what might be a smirk. 

Sakura’s eyes burn with unshed tears at how useless it all was. There would be no cure. There was no way to turn back time and stop this from happening. There is only the way forward, and it’s so bleak.

“… My death or suffering would change nothing. From all reports, the Godaime Hokage’s second apprentice is too pragmatic to indulge herself in vengeance.”

“Don’t speak! You have no right,” she hisses. “No right to talk to people who have lost everything for your selfishness. You couldn’t even cure her. I have the files from your lab. You’re responsible for an apocalypse level epidemic, and all so that her prognosis would be terminally ill and insane instead of fatal!”

She barely noticed that by the end of her tirade she was straddling him to better pummel his stupid, smug face. Suddenly, a light hold on her wrist brought her back to awareness.

“Sakura, that’s enough.”

Incensed, she leapt up from the limp body under her. “You can’t be sorry for him!”

“I’m not,” he mutters. “I’m sorry for you. You never liked doing this to people.”

True, Sakura has done worse things to her enemies, but her enemy has never been a desperate, half-dead father with mad scientist capabilities. If Naruto had been alive, then he would have been disgusted by her attack on a helpless man—even one who had doomed them all. _If Naruto and everyone else had been alive, then she wouldn’t have been in this position._

As her breathing steadies, she forces away that vague tickle of shame and looks for signs of life. It would have wasted years of effort and sacrifice if she’d killed him in her outburst. 

Hiroshi’s face is a ruined mess of blood, broken bone, and what looks suspiciously like brain matter. One side of his face had caved in from restrained strength of her blows, but amazingly he still manages to suck in oxygen. The awareness in his remaining eye reassures Sakura that he’s still capable of appreciating her message, so she gives him the most pleasantly empty smile Sai and Kakashi have taught her and reaches behind her back for an oversized scroll.

“When I met Suzume-chan, she told me how much she missed you. It’s such as shame when a father and daughter spend so much time apart. She was so happy when I offered to help her find you.”

Her smile takes on a malevolent edge at the desperate way his eye is intent on the tediously slow unrolling of the scroll.

When she unseals the doll-like body of his only child, he makes an awkward, desperate lunge to clutch at her with his failing strength. His utter desolation is the most wonderful thing Sakura allows herself remember.

~*~*~

The trip back to the new settlement—he’ll never call it a village even in his mind—is quiet except for the scuff of their sandals on tree bark. The silence lasts for an entire five days until Kakashi stops them at the edge of the outermost perimeter. He’s careful to keep Sakura loosely clasped against his chest until she reciprocates the embrace.

“Sakura. I understand what you did. You could never be terrible enough that I won’t love you.” He peers down at her face, looking for cracks in her expressionless facade. _Just one more push..._. “They would have done the same for you. How could they not?” 

He knows that he’s reached her when she releases a gusty sigh and rests her forehead against his collarbone. After several long moments, she steps back from his embrace and moves towards the first checkpoint.

When he doesn’t immediately follow, she tugs him along gently. “Well come on then. It’s good to be home again.” 

It's tiny, but it was there for the merest second. It's been almost a year since he's seen her smile, but he swears that there was something cautiously happy in the curve of her lips. For that, he can learn to call this place home, too.

~*~*~

Kakashi knows he should have told her when he first noticed; it’s been a whole month of painstaking effort not to talk to people who aren’t there, and he has no idea what gave it away when she confronts him after their encounter with Hiroshi.

“So Kakashi... when were you planning on telling me you were dying?” 

He lifts a brow at her coldness. He has to admit that when he imagined this conversation, he expected a little more emotion. Of course, he didn’t imagine it would happen on the same day they met the creator of the epidemic and gave him the dead body of his daughter after nearly splitting his head open like an overripe melon.

“It never seemed like a good time.” He wonders at his sanity, that he can be so satisfied pulling even negative emotions out of her but puts that thought aside. He watches fascinated, as the blood retreats from her compressed lips, and her eyes take on an awful, familiar glint.

“Never a good time.” She repeats it in incredulous tones, “Never a good time!” 

She laughs then, and it’s a sound out of the worst nightmares. The ones when he finds his father’s body, when Obito and Rin stare at him with accusing eyes, when he has to bury his teacher, his students. All terrible, but Sakura’s desperate, ugly laughter underscores each scene. She smiles at him with brilliant insincerity, and he’s enormously proud. He’s the one who taught her that by his own example. One of the few things he’s managed to give Sakura, his best—his final—student and lover.

“If you die, then I’ll never forgive you.” Her voice rises in hysteria. “How could you be so cruel, Kakashi? To give me hope and rip it away again.”

Selfishly, her denial is all he could have wished, if he didn't care how much closer this pushes her to the breaking point. As it is, he's not sure if she'll be able to harden her heart one more time. One _last_ time.

"Sakura, shh." He strokes the hair away from her careworn face. "Look at me". 

Her eyes are dry, and the utter stillness of her expression gives nothing away. It is several minutes before she says in a slow, mechanical voice. "Those who disobey orders are trash, but those who abandon their teammates are worse than trash."

At her words, he isn't sure if he feels more terror or relief, but he has to try. "Sakura you understand what's going to happen. I can't lose the rest of my mind and die like that. Not even for you. _I can't_ —"

"Just shut up!" she snarls. "I know all of that. How can you think I'm blaming you? How can you believe that I wouldn't do this for you? My last—my _only_ teammate! _Idiot_. We swore to follow each other into danger and the dark and anywhere else there was need... **You are going nowhere I can't follow.** "

She’s forced to stop talking when he pulls down his mask, takes her face into his hands, and kisses her. Maybe it was another side effect of the Whisper, but her horrible, unwavering devotion thrills him. She has never been more amazing or heartbreaking to him as she is right now. If these are his last moments then he wants to remember her like this: alive and full of emotions. It is a mere shadow of her old rage, but it’s enough. It has to be enough.

His last attempt is only for the sake of his battered conscience and pathetically unconvincing even to his now-unreliable ears, "You know I don't deserve this."

"Neither do I.” Sakura wheezes out a laugh, dry as dust. She kisses him soft and sweet, and he pretends that nothing is wrong. They’re just a man and a woman in love. She winds her arms around him, resting her hands on his back, behind his heart. 

He moans at her touch, at the heat spreading through his chest. His heart beats faster and faster as he drowns in the feel of Sakura against him, Sakura’s warmth inside of him, growing like a tiny sun. A beautiful green glow—the same green as Sakura’s eyes—penetrates his closed lids. Against her lips, he whispers, “I love you.” _I’m sorry._

When he opens his eyes, the world is awash in green. He and Sakura are surrounded in a brilliant nimbus of her chakra—her love and light. 

Kakashi can’t imagine a better end.

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry for all my mistakes. Thank you for reading this old fic of mine. Kakasaku was one of my longest running OTPs, and I always wanted to be able to finish this fic. It's not exactly finished, but I guess this is as close as it gets. Thank you to the kakasaku communities on LJ and DW. I wouldn't have started writing again without them.


End file.
